A Warrant to Kill: A True Story of Obsession, Lies and a Killer Cop by Kathryn Casey Read Free Book Online

a white BMW convertible with leather seats. She became a common sight barreling through the streets of Oak Creek, the BMW’s top down, her long blond hair whipping in the breeze, her skin burnished to a dark tan from visits to a nearby tanning salon. She and Ron sold the Valley Bend house and bought a brand-new one on Amber Forest, in a tony section of Olde Oaks, a more prestigious subdivision that butted up to Oak Creek Village on the east.
    The house was a two-story, rose-colored brick fortress, on a street populated by upper-level managers and professional couples and their families. It had leaded-glass windows in the stately double front doors, a marble-floored entry, a game room and a gym, a black marble floor-to-ceiling fireplace in the living room, and a cedar-shingle roof that glistened silver in the harsh Houston sun. Despite her decidedly nontraditional nature, Susan decorated like an Ethan Allen brochure: a deep-shine polished Chippendale dining room set, a cherry bedroom suite with a four-poster bed under an oil painting of an ancient sailing ship tossed on an angry sea. Copper pots hung over a kitchen counter, and rows of crystal goblets lined the china cabinet.
    “She wanted more than she had on Valley Bend,” says Millikan. “And we were glad to be rid of the problems with Jason on the street. The only thing I heard in the neighborhood was people wishing they’d moved farther away.”
    Susan had come a long way from the shotgun houses of her youth. “The house I grew up in would fit in our living room,” she bragged to one friend. “I always knew that someday I’d have a house like this one.”
    That Thanksgiving, Susan’s parents, Sandra, and Kay came to visit. “It was a wonderful time,” says Sandra. “Susan was so excited about the house, about everything. I don’t ever remember seeing her so happy.”
    They used Susan’s new video camera to record the event. In the tape, she traveled through the house narrating in her gravelly voice; at one point, in a scene that would later smack of high irony, she playfully chased a reclusive Ron.
    “You hiding from me?” she quipped.
    Never much of a cook, Susan ordered a prepared turkey dinner with all the fixings from a local grocery store. Yet before they had time to claim it, a boom reverberated through the neighborhood, shaking the house. They rushed outside to find the home directly next door engulfed in flames.
    O.L. called 911, but by the time a fire truck arrived, there was little left to do but wet down the cedar-shingle roofs on the surrounding houses to keep the fire from spreading. Susan watched in horror as greedy flames devoured her neighbor’s home, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She sobbed like a baby,” remembers Kay. “She was so afraid that the fire would jump over to her house and they’d lose all their beautiful things.”
    The fire never did reach Susan’s beloved home, but something else happened that day, something Susan didn’t even notice at the time, something that wouldprove more deadly to the world she’d so carefully constructed.
    “I think it was a while after the fire,” Kay muses. “The phone rang, and I saw Ron pick it up. He gave me kind of a funny look and turned away. He whispered real soft, like he didn’t want me to hear, and all I could think was,
Oh, no. Not a girlfriend.”

4

    Life doesn’t happen in earth-shattering events or great revelations. It builds in moments, fleeting thoughts, and forgotten deeds; in a series of installments, each separate yet connected. Mysteriously, minor decisions become life-shaping; a mere acquaintance alters destiny. Life is a kaleidoscope, its pieces tumbling haphazardly, forming one pattern that merges seamlessly into another, until a twist of the bezel casts an unanticipated design, an unforeseen possibility, a final resolution.
    In early 1992, Susan White’s world shifted, undetectably at first, then at such speed that it sent her reeling.
    A